Peering through the window of a stolen cargo van, Centerville police saw a woman sleeping on the floor. The two officers drew their guns and opened the sliding door.

The woman sat upright, raised her hands above her head and did not move as the officers commanded.

A search of the van that January morning yielded a printer, forged and blank checks, stolen Social Security and health-care cards, bank statements and stacks of mail.

Officer Rob Kirkham also detected the distinct odor of methamphetamine. The 36-year-old woman later told police she had been up for three days on a meth bender.

Meth addiction and mail theft fit neatly together.

"It just goes hand in hand," Utah postal inspector Randy Tuckett said.

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is charged with protecting the nation's mail. It investigates identity theft and mail theft or what criminals call "mailboxing" or "red flagging." There are 10 agents in Utah.

"We do keep ourselves busy," Tuckett said, adding several inspectors work nothing but mail theft. "(If) you see an increase in methamphetamine abuse, you see an increase in mail theft."

Meth addiction has reached epidemic proportions in Utah. It is the fastest growing illicit drug in the state, outpacing marijuana. More than a quarter of men and nearly 40 percent of women in treatment programs are meth abusers.

If your mail has been stolen, chances are the thief was a meth addict, or a "tweaker" as they often refer to themselves.

The Postal Inspection Service financial crimes database lists 96 mailbox "attacks" in Utah in the past two years. The data include neighborhood cluster boxes, apartment panel boxes, blue collection boxes and post office boxes. Curbside mailboxes are not included, and postal inspectors have no idea how much mail is stolen from them.

Though postal inspectors don't keep track, Tuckett estimates the thieves are meth addicts "a good 80 percent to 90 percent of the time."

Mail theft is a federal offense that carries a two-year minimum mandatory prison term.

Kirk Torgensen, who heads the Utah attorney general's identity fraud unit, said there's "absolutely no doubt" that Utah's meth problem is a major cause of mail theft.

Stolen mail often results in stolen identity.

"We see a lot of meth heads involved in this identity theft stuff," he said. "We know that when they steal mail, they're doing it to use someone's identity."

People high on meth can stay awake and focused on repetitive tasks for days, making them adept at stealing from mailboxes and altering checks and documents. Using common solvents like acetone, mail snatchers "wash" and rewrite checks to themselves for hundreds or even thousands of dollars. They have no problem spending hours perfecting a watermark or re-arranging account numbers.